English 237 - Fall, 2020

Seminar for Writers

Class Information

Instructor: Peterson, Katie
CRN: 53280
Time: F 12:30-3:30
Breadth: Later American
Focus: Genre, Interdiscipline

Description

This is a seminar on collaboration in the arts, taught in partnership with the first-year seminar required of all M.F.A. candidates in the Art Studio program. The focus of the entire quarter is the creative benefit collaboration - making work with others. For the first five weeks, participants, in groups, will pursue creative projects inspired by a shared theme (TBA). This work will be buoyed by films, readings, podcasts, and seminar discussions curated by both instructors (Katie Peterson and Young Suh) to theorize and encourage vital aspects of collaboration, including shared control. We will discuss elements of art making that transcend medium, like expression, narrative, beauty, voice, metaphor and symbol, and cultural relevance. The second five weeks of the course will focus on collaboration in writing, with seminar discussions that treat works using collaborative strategies, like translation, oral history, allusion, and ekphrasis.

Grading

Grading will be based on participation in the classroom community and in the collaborative partnerships formed by it. It will also be based on two pieces of work - the interdisciplinary collaboration due by sixth week, and a final writing assignment due in the last week of the quarter.